Parthena slouched in her chair as though in defeat. “I hate that Morgan wins. That he believes he can control me as he controls his world.”
“No matter your infatuation with Lucas, you must admit you are equally intrigued by your own husband, even if it is against your will.” Zylphia tapped Parthena on her hand. “I know you believe he is too controlling, but perhaps it is the only way he can convince himself you’ll continue to pay attention to him.” Zylphia’s smile became wicked as Parthena blushed. “You like his touch, even though you hate admitting it. Rather than wait for him to approach you, to touch you, why don’t you shock him and take the initiative?” Her smile blossomed into one of true deviltry. “Shock him, and then seduce him into submission.”
Parthena scoffed. “That only works in novels.”
“You’re both miserable now. I don’t see how it could make matters any worse.”
Parthena flushed. “It would give him the idea I want more from him.”
“I think that perhaps you do.” Zylphia raised her eyebrows as she reached for her teacup. “But you’ll have to be the one to make that decision.”
7
“Lucas, there is no need to antagonize your mother,” Martin Russell chastised. He sat in his office in his fine linen store in the South End. Stacks of inventory lined one side of his desk, and the house shook every few minutes from the passage of one of the overhead trains. His brown eyes flashed with irritation at his son as he shut the door behind him. “When she calls on you, I would expect you to treat her with respect.”
“I’ve no wish to see her, Father,” Lucas said. He swiped a hand over his perfectly pleated gray pants, unbuttoning his matching jacket to sit with more comfort. “Which she knows and yet she continues to visit me.”
“Lucas, she made a mistake years ago, and you must forgive her.”
“What mistake is that, Father? Marrying you or having Savannah and me?” Lucas flushed at the wounded look that flashed across his father’s face at his words. “Forgive me.”
“This isn’t like you, Lucas. We’ve supported you in your desire to perform and compose music. We’ve understood your need to travel the world and no longer work here with me in the store. You’ll never understand how proud we are of you, son.”
Lucas shook his head with disbelief. “You are proud of me. You understand. Mother isn’t and never will be.” His fierce glare and scowl silenced his father’s protest. “She wishes I remained a store clerk, under her control.”
Martin took a deep breath, his gaze distant. “Your mother had very little control over her life when she was younger. It’s why she attempts to cling to it now.”
“Even at the expense of losing her daughter? When was the last time Savannah wrote you? When did you last see her?”
Martin’s eyes shone with repressed grief. “I saw her with you. When she left for Montana with her Jeremy. In 1903.” He looked over Lucas’s shoulder, as though envisioning that scene, his attempt not to clasp his daughter to him and never let her go as he bid her good-bye at the train station. “You don’t understand what it’s like for a father to know he’ll never see his daughter again.”
“She’d visit if not for Mother,” Lucas said. Perplexed, he furrowed his brows and watched his father. “Why do you stay? She watched you, wounded and bleeding on the floor, and did nothing. She failed to visit you in the hospital. She mourned the man who would have gladly killed us all in his intent to regain Savannah. Why do you stay?”
“Your mother and I have forged a truce.”
Lucas frowned as he studied his father. Rather than the vibrant man he’d worked with side-by side, his father appeared diminished. His shoulders stooped somewhat; the lines around his eyes appeared to be from frowns rather than the ever-present smile from Lucas’s childhood, and his face held a deep resignation. “You’ve accepted that your son and daughter have the right to their heart’s desire, but that you don’t.”
Martin sighed. “When you are a father, when you know what that deep, boundless love is, then you’ll understand.”
“Why would you think my love for you would be any less?” His voice broke with his deep emotion as he watched his father, for the first time seeing him as mortal. Even when Martin had been injured, Lucas never doubted his father’s ability to recover. He fisted his hand on his armchair. “I hate that you sacrificed your happiness for mine.”
“Life does not always follow the path we think it will. I never expected to meet, much less marry, a woman as fine as your mother.” He opened his arms to encompass his office, the shop, and his home. “All we’ve had, all you’ve had the opportunity to experience, is due to my decision to marry your mother. Rather than tinker away at a back-breaking trade, you had an education and the time to learn to play the piano.”
“Your father owned this shop. You would have been fine had you married someone other than Mother.”
Martin’s eyes flashed again at his son’s impertinence. “I married your mother to save our shop. We were on the verge of losing it. Your mother saved my father’s dream.”
“What about your dreams? If you hadn’t been tied to this shop, what would you have done?”
Martin closed his eyes a moment and settled against his creaky, comfortable wooden chair. “Travel. I would have continued working for my father, but I would have relished traveling to France or India or anywhere we purchased linens.”
“Why don’t you travel now?”
“When the world’s at war?” Martin shook his head. “No, my opportunity is gone.” His eyes shone with pride as he beheld Lucas. “It’s part of the reason I encouraged you to accept the foreign tour. I knew you would be wildly popular. I also wanted you to live without restrictions.” He shared a chagrined smile with Lucas. “Once you finally told me that you’d no longer work here.”
After a moment’s companionable silence, Martin said, “I want you to treat your mother better. She is your mother.”
“Do you know what she’s said about me? About how she’s attempting to sabotage my career?” His eyes shone with hurt. He barreled on when his father shook his head no. “She’s bandied it about that I’m slowly going insane. That it’s a trait she’s attempted to shield her husband from as I’m forced to face the harsh realities of my father’s family’s fate.”
Martin tensed, his face reddening as Lucas spoke. “She said what about the Russells?”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
Martin rose, his anger gifting him the agility of a man half his age. He strode to the door and bellowed for his wife. He waited, his head cocked to one side as he listened, nodding with satisfaction when he heard her heels on the stairs. He returned to his place behind his desk and took a few deep breaths, as though attempting to calm his erratic breathing.
Matilda entered the office, the staccato clicking of her heels an indication of her irritation. “Martin, how many times must I tell you that bellowing for me is not an appropriate manner to ask for my presence in your office?”
“Perhaps my latent lunacy is finally shining through,” Martin hissed. He watched his wife, his face beet red and eyes glacially cold as he noted her paling at his words.
“Martin, you’ve been listening to nonsensical gossip.”
“Of course he has, Mother. He’s been listening to his son, who’s purported to be going as insane as his father,” Lucas said.
She started at seeing Lucas standing in a corner, one heel crossed over the other. She closed the door behind her, tilting up her chin as she regained her equilibrium and took her seat in front of Martin. “I have nothing to explain.”
“Of course not. You never do. You simply wreak havoc in the lives of those you are supposed to love and protect, and then watch with glee as they suffer the consequences of what you’ve done.”
“Lucas,” Matilda said, her eyes shining with surprise and a hint of pain at his words.
“I tried, Matilda. I have tried to excuse your behavior after you invited Jonas
into our house. After you refused to support Lucas in his dream. When I learned you wrote scathing letters to Savannah in Montana.” He shared a look with a shocked Lucas at that news. “However, this ends now. Either you find a way to cease your meddlesome ways, or I will divorce you.”
“Divorce?” Her voice rose to an octave just below a shriek. “Divorce? How dare you threaten me after all I’ve done for you? After all I’ve suffered?”
“I believe the suffering has been mutual,” Martin said in a low voice. He motioned with his head for Lucas to leave his office, and Lucas nodded, silently moving behind his mother and shutting the door behind him.
Martin leaned forward, his hands clasped together in front of him on his desk. “You have a penchant for mischief. I’d hoped you’d worn yourself out, but it appears, with Lucas returned to us, you decided to attempt to bend him to your will.” He clamped his jaw together in his fury. “At my family’s expense.”
“They aren’t worthy of such concern,” Matilda retorted.
His voice became softer but more potent for its controlled anger. “And you believe your family is? They who care nothing for the personal satisfaction of individual members as long as the family name and so-called honor is upheld?” Martin’s eyes blazed with his ire. “After all these years, do you really feel no affinity for me or my family?”
“That question is not worthy of a response.” She tilted her head a bit higher, her flinch barely appreciable when she noticed the agony in Martin’s expression.
“My love for you, my devotion, my constant defense of you have meant nothing, have they? Because I’m not the one you wanted.” He growled out, “Not some two-bit actor who had such little regard for you that he’d abandon you pregnant to pursue another conquest.”
Matilda’s calm facade cracked, and she snarled at Martin. “You have no right to even speak of him. He had more culture, more ingrained decency than I’ve ever known with you.”
“What did he do when he learned you were pregnant? Did he approach your parents and say that he’d marry you? That he’d be delighted to care for you in Scollay Square?”
“How dare you!”
“How dare I? After I’ve dedicated my life to you and our family? After I’ve only shown you love and devotion, and this is how I’m repaid? By lies, deceit, and disdain? Yes, how dare I attempt to show you that the dreams you cling to have only ever been illusions. The reality you’ve lived with me is far superior to anything you could ever have lived with that bastard.” He took a deep breath, his heartbreak and desolation clear.
“I want you to understand, Matilda, from this moment on, I will no longer excuse your poor behavior. I will no longer write to Savannah on your behalf. I will write on my behalf only. I will no longer encourage Lucas to treat you with respect. You’ve lost the right to his regard. If you want it, you must earn it back.”
“Martin,” she whispered, tears threatening.
“I’m afraid your tears are at least a decade too late. I would like you to move your things from our bedroom into Savannah’s while you consider all you have done, all that you have failed to do. I hope you will come to the realization that you wish to be my helpmate, rather than my vocal opponent. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” He reached for a ledger and bent over it, silently tallying columns. After a moment he raised his head and looked from her to the door. He watched her go, collapsing into his chair at the soft click of the door behind her. He glared at the paperwork in front of him, unable to focus on it as he relived the scene with his wife.
8
Parthena rose from the rear veranda at the rental house in Newport, quietly entering an open door. The silk curtain caressed her skin as she slipped inside. She paused for a moment to adjust to the darker interior before moving soundlessly through the room to the hallway. She peered down the hallway and walked on her tiptoes to a small room down the hall. The door eased open without a sound, and she entered, closing the door behind her.
Parthena glanced around, noting no one in the small parlor. She slid onto the piano stool, wincing as it squeaked when she pushed away from the piano. She raised her hands over the piano keys, tracing them with her fingers but failing to press down on them. She closed her eyes, swaying to the silent music she heard in her head.
“I don’t see why you won’t play,” Aidan murmured, entering the room.
Parthena shrieked at his silent entrance, her hands dropping to the piano keys and producing a loud clanging noise. “It displeases my husband.” She caressed the keys as she spoke, her head bowed.
“He’s not here, Mrs. Wheeler. It would bring joy to this house to have beautiful music fill it.” He waited for a few moments, but, when she remained resolutely still, he sighed. “Forgive me for intruding.” He departed, leaving the door ajar.
Parthena listened for the sound of his shoes moving away from the music room, but silence ensued. She bit her lip as she traced the piano keys. As though against her will, her fingers pressed down, and she began to play. The sounds of Shubert-Liszt’s “Frühlingsglaube” filled the room. She swayed as she played, her eyes closing and a smile spreading across her face as the romantic lyricism of the music enveloped her.
Morgan stood outside the music room, Parthena’s romantic, passionate playing filling the hallway. Before he could take a step into the room, a strong arm gripped him and pulled him toward another room off the elaborate hallway. Morgan shrugged his arm but wasn’t freed until the door closed quietly behind them.
“Let her be,” Aidan McLeod demanded. “I encouraged her to play.”
“You had no right,” Morgan said. He glowered at Aidan who remained in front of the door, blocking his departure.
“Maybe not in the eyes of the law, as she is your wife. However, I refuse to remain silent as I witness your slow destruction of her spirit.”
“Why do you believe you can speak to me in such a manner?” Morgan leaned forward, his jaw clenched and hands fisted at his sides. He quivered with suppressed emotion.
“Because I know when a man is being a fool, out of pride and spite.” Aidan watched as a flush rose on Morgan’s face, mottling his skin. He dodged to the side as Morgan’s right fist flew, landing a glancing blow off his shoulder rather than on his chin. Aidan danced to the side and launched himself at Morgan, dodging blows and grunting as Morgan punched him in his ribs. After a few moments of grappling, Aidan pinned Morgan against the door, his hands holding Morgan’s arms down, with his shoulder pressed into Morgan’s sternum preventing much movement. Aidan’s lower body canted away from Morgan, and the kicks and jabs from Morgan’s legs did little to move Aidan, other than to tighten his hold on Morgan.
“I might be older than you, but I learned how to fight in the real world, not a fancy boxing club.” He half smiled as he gave Morgan a shake. “And I worked on sailing ships, where I learned that I either fought and lived or lost and died.”
Morgan continued to vibrate in anger and to push against Aidan’s unwavering grip.
“Is this what your vaunted control has come to?” Aidan asked. “Is this what you would have unleashed on your wife?”
“Release me.”
“Only when you promise me that you’ll sit in the chair over there and calm before leaving.” Aidan’s blue eyes shone with a fierce intensity as he met Morgan’s gaze.
“I have no wish to listen to your chatter, disguised as misbegotten advice.”
“I think you have plenty to contemplate, without me adding to the clutter of your mind,” Aidan said, easing away from him.
Morgan released a deep breath and relaxed when he was free to move as he pleased. He eased away from the door and approached one of the chocolate-brown leather chairs sitting in front of the desk and settled into it.
Aidan moved to a small sideboard, splashing in a few sips of whiskey into two glasses. “Here,” he said. He settled into his own chair, the leather creaking with his movement. Aidan stared at the desk in the room, plastered with papers
secured by paperweights. He smiled as one page seemed determined to break free as the afternoon breeze gusted into the room, billowing the curtains. He leaned his head against the chair’s tall back, stretched his legs in front of him, and closed his eyes. “Don’t think I’m not paying attention to you,” Aidan murmured, when he heard Morgan shift in the chair next to him.
“I don’t understand you,” Morgan said.
“Of course you don’t. You come from a world where little of consequence is discussed and all that should be openly stated is inferred.” Aidan tilted his head to the side and met Morgan’s confused stare.
“I speak what must be said.”
“In business, most likely,” Aidan murmured. “How has your acquisition of the timber prospects in Canada progressed?” He shifted, maneuvering to face Morgan, and watched him intently.
“Well, I think. Although I should never admit it, the war is proving a boon to commodities, and there is a great demand for them.” Morgan shrugged his shoulders, either in apology or resignation to that reality.
Aidan nodded and continued to ask probing questions as Morgan spoke of his growing successes with his business ventures. Aidan made conciliatory noises as Morgan spoke of the few unsuccessful ventures he’d attempted in the past years and responded with quiet words of encouragement. The longer they spoke of business, the more Morgan relaxed.
“If I’d been smart, I would have bought into copper years ago. The demand is massive with the growing market for electricity,” Morgan said.
Aidan snorted as he shook his head with chagrin. “If any man should feel embarrassed, it’s me. I’ve been to Montana numerous times and refused to buy into commodities as I thought they were too volatile a market. I made a grave error by not heeding what was occurring in Butte.” His gaze became distant. “However, by the time I traveled to Montana, all the claims had already been made there.”
Unrelenting Love: Banished Saga, Book Five Page 9
